nkgibbs Posted December 11, 2015 Share Posted December 11, 2015 (edited) C.netters, I recently came across this concertina exhibit in the Australian War Memorial website which I have not seen mentioned before on C.net. Neil Edited December 11, 2015 by nkgibbs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnnyace Posted December 11, 2015 Share Posted December 11, 2015 What a fantastic find! And what an amazing tale! Thanks very much for posting! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Chambers Posted December 11, 2015 Share Posted December 11, 2015 (edited) I recently came across this concertina exhibit in the Australian War Memorial website which I have not seen mentioned before on C.net. And that's not all - they've also got his first, 20-key one, that survived the first two years of war: "When we went to France, I still carried the old concertina until about August 1916 when I decided to pension the old instrument off and I sent it back home. I had it autographed by the officers and men of the unit, and also marked the names of the different places where I carried [it]. The boys of the unit were so used to the old instrument that they made a collection and gave me the money to buy a new concertina, which I had sent from London and which I carried with me and used to good purpose till I left the unit." So that second instrument, # 84335 (and what do you bet there's a lead-digit '1' missing there?) that you've linked to might be exactly what Randy is looking for as a WW1 date point for his serial number dating project... Hey, RANDY!!! Edited December 11, 2015 by Stephen Chambers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Hare Posted December 12, 2015 Share Posted December 12, 2015 (edited) Remember the recent thread 'Dating a 31B Lachenal' (or somethinglike that)? See: http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?s=0dda08ef084b43dee90f6415f0998649&showtopic=18293 That discussion centred around No. 188334, with diversions to discuss No. 187243, which later seems to have been a misreading of No. 137243. The 'conclusion' in that thread seemed to be tending towards the idea that instruments in the 180,000's are from the mid-late nineteen-twenties? Is it not therefore possible that the serial number given for the instrument discussed in this thread (ie: in the 80,000s) is correct, and that the instrument should be dated much earlier - say last decade of 19th century? That would tie in with serial numbers along the high 70,000s (ie: like my No. 74693) which are supposed to be late nineteenth century? However, the comment about the second instrument: 'The boys of the unit were so used to the old instrument that they made a collection and gave me the money to buy a new concertina, which I had sent from London and which I carried with me and used to good purpose till I left the unit' muddies the waters more than a little - particularly if it was a new instrument in 1916! if the correct number is in the 80,000's, it was made earlier, if the correct number is in the 180,000's, it was made later. Help! I'm confused... Final thought - 'Haud on Jimmie!' - it's a 26-button instrument - is the date at which Lachenal started making 26-button instruents known? That should help? Sorry if this doesn't hang together very well, but I'm doing it 'on the fly' with a dodgy connection, and don't have time to check my 'factoids' - which I will try and do later in order to get my story right.... More to the point, I'm interested to see that at least some museums feature 'tinas in this way. I will now certainly be taking my Lachenal semi-miniature No. 137243 (featured here on more than one occasion) to the Imperial War Museum out-station in Manchester (Salford?) when I have moved up there next year - to see if they are interested in featuring it somewhere... Roger Edited December 12, 2015 by lachenal74693 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Chambers Posted December 12, 2015 Share Posted December 12, 2015 (edited) Remember the recent thread 'Dating a 31B Lachenal' (or somethinglike that)? See: http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?s=0dda08ef084b43dee90f6415f0998649&showtopic=18293 The 'conclusion' in that thread seemed to be tending towards the idea that instruments in the 180,000's are from the mid-late nineteen-twenties? That thread hasn't really reached a "conclusion" yet, except that there was a huge Anglo boom in the last quarter of the 19th century, and an equally huge decline in Anglo sales in the first quarter of the 20th, so that any attempt to date Anglos on "average annual production" is doomed to abject failure. But now we know this one was bought new in 1916, its (correct) serial number becomes of great interest and (as Randy will tell you) the leading digit '1' often gets missed when Lachenal Anglo serial numbers are read by people who aren't used to it - he's already had numerous problems over that. Final thought - 'Haud on Jimmie!' - it's a 26-button instrument - is the date at which Lachenal started making 26-button instruents known? That should help? Not in the slightest I'm afraid - the very first Anglo Chromatic concertinas, made before Lachenal's even STARTED to make Anglos in 1862, had 26 keys... Edited December 12, 2015 by Stephen Chambers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Hare Posted December 12, 2015 Share Posted December 12, 2015 That thread hasn't really reached a "conclusion" yet, except that there was a huge Anglo boom in the last quarter of the 19th century, and an equally huge decline in Anglo sales in the first quarter of the 20th, so that any attempt to date Anglos on "average annual production" is doomed to abject failure. But now we know this one was bought new in 1916, its (correct) serial number becomes of great interest and (as Randy will tell you) the leading digit '1' often gets missed when Lachenal Anglo serial numbers are read by people who aren't used to it - he's already had numerous problems over that. . . Not in the slightest I'm afraid - the very first Anglo Chromatic concertinas, made before Lachenal's even STARTED to make Anglos in 1862, had 26 keys.. Thank you for that. I put quotes round 'conclusion' for the very reason you give. I can now only find one of the dating references I have used in the past - by (I think) Chris Timson. I have carelessly lost the article by Wes Williams and the information supplied by Randall Merris, so I'm going to continue to be puzzled, I guess. I shall be more careful with these references in future! I'm presuming from what you say that if the correct number of the instrument flagged up in the first post in this thread is indeed in the 180,000's, and is correctly dated to 1916, a lot of existing dates will need re-thinking, including that of the instrument first cited in http://www.concertin...showtopic=18293 I hope I'm not seen as banging on about dates in general, but they do fascinate me. However, I'm becoming increasingly cautious when giving even wide-ranging approximate dates for my vintage 'tinas... Thank you for the comment about 26-buttons - another piece of information to file away. Roger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Ghent Posted December 16, 2015 Share Posted December 16, 2015 I know one of the people involved in placing these concertinas on display when she worked at the AWM and have drawn her attention to this thread. She has an association with concertinas; there is at least one instrument out there with endscrews made by her, a story for another time. Also her father owns a Wheatstone old enough to have square ends to the reed frames and no partitions, I forget the number but it is very low. She has introduced me to the current curator responsible for the musical instrument collection at the AWM and I am in the middle of writing to him in order they might correct the record should suspicions raised about the number of the 26 key pan out. Stephen, in order to further the discussion on the possibility the number is missing a prefix 1, is there any other reason you might say this other than the numbers you think Lachenal would have been working on at the time, something physical about the instrument? The reason I ask this is because maybe the fact that he received a new instrument does not definitively mean it was "brand' new, it could have just been new to him. Chudleigh's wording was "The boys of the unit were so used to the old instrument that they made a collection and gave me the money to buy a new concertina..." Using new to mean "another" would make sense today, don't know about back then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Chambers Posted December 16, 2015 Share Posted December 16, 2015 The only likely external difference between # 84335 and # 184335 would be that I'd expect the former might have fatter buttons than this one does Chris, the buttons on Sergeant Chudleigh's concertina are of the smaller diameter that I'd expect to see on an instrument from 1916. Otherwise, I know that Randy has had numerous instances of serial numbers being incorrectly reported to him as 5-digit, without that all-important 6th one. I guess Lachenal's didn't make the serial number slot in the L/H end any longer when they went over to 6-digit numbers, and the small strips of paper on which the external numbers are printed tended to be trimmed very tightly, meaning the '1' is not at all clear at the beginning and the number is often misread - but it should be clearly stamped inside the concertina. I also thought the price he paid for it might give a clue, but I see that's exactly the same as on the c.1920 Lachenal Price List that's online - so I suspect that that may well be where the Museum got the price from in the first place... Time will tell! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Ghent Posted December 16, 2015 Share Posted December 16, 2015 Thanks Stephen, maybe now attention is drawn to the number perhaps if the curator understands the importance to the those interested in the concertina community he might check for an extra digit. I don't know whether they would take it apart to confirm the number though I'd be happy to do that for them. I don't have any Lachers around at the moment, is the number in a place where it could be viewed through the end..? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Ghent Posted December 16, 2015 Share Posted December 16, 2015 Another thought, does anyone have an idea what the three "tacks" into the wood on the side of the ends might be for? https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/RELAWM07996.002/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Chambers Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 Another thought, does anyone have an idea what the three "tacks" into the wood on the side of the ends might be for? https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/RELAWM07996.002/ I can only speculate that they might relate to the instrument being displayed somewhere, at some time... You can actually see, but not read, the external serial number label in that photo Chris - it's almost always in a cut-out in the front left corner of most concertinas, as long as there's still an original baffle inside the instrument. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Ghent Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 It occurred to me after writing the pins may be a removable pin system for displaying music or song run downs. In the second picture there is a hole where a fourth pin might have been and the hole is large and regular, much like an accordion pin. The number I was thinking of Stephen was the internal number, I didn't make that clear,sorry. I wouldn't want to be asking the museum to be levering away at the external number trying to see a few mms further along the label. If it was possible to see the internal number through the fretwork it would be much easier, but I don't know where the internal numbers are on a Lachernal. Maybe now the question of an extra digit has been raised it will be obvious to anyone looking afresh at the label. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Chambers Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 On the reedpans and also on the bellows frames then Chris, which means an end will need to be taken off, and those cheap steel endbolts can sometimes be the devil to get out because of rust... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alex_holden Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 Another thought, does anyone have an idea what the three "tacks" into the wood on the side of the ends might be for? https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/RELAWM07996.002/ Could it be a means of attaching a makeshift rain cover? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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